


you can always find me here

by ThunderstormsandMemories



Series: 15 days of fatt 2020 [1]
Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: 15 Days of FatT, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23191465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/pseuds/ThunderstormsandMemories
Summary: Hella is a legendary jaeger pilot, Adaire is her new co-pilot, and Adelaide is dead. except she's not, at least not to Hella. not in the drift.
Relationships: Adaire Ducarte/Adelaide Tristé/Hella Varal, Adelaide Tristé/Hella Varal
Series: 15 days of fatt 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1667332
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	you can always find me here

Adaire had, of course, heard of Hella Varal long before she ever met her, long before her sudden and unexpected acceptance to the jaeger pilot program and her arrival to the Rosemerrow Shatterdome. Who hadn’t, after all, heard the stories about Hella, the pride of the Ordennan Military Academy, the hero of Velas, who had, along with her famed co-pilot Adelaide Tristé in their jaeger Queenkiller Alabaster, been responsible for along every victory scored against the kaiju on this side of Hieron in the past three years. And who hadn’t seen the news, the horrible, shattering news of the fall of Nacre, the loss of every jaeger and every pilot that had been defending the city. Or so they all thought, until Hella was found, bloodied and bruised and barely alive, washed up on the shore alone, her co-pilot lost beneath the waves. She’d recovered, slowly, returned to training, but hadn’t been paired up with anyone else, even as more and more pilots were lost, even though she’d gone through the early phases of compatibility testing with every promising pilot who came through, and it was above Adaire’s pay grade to know if that was the choice of the experts and doctors and people even further up in the chain of command, or if it was Hella’s choice.

Well. It had been above her pay grade. Now she supposed it was a little bit more relevant, now that she was standing in the cockpit of a jaeger with Hella, preparing for their first attempt at the drift, but she hadn’t wanted to pry. Sure, they’d share mortifyingly intimate secrets with each other while drifting, but that didn’t mean she wanted to have to talk about feelings out loud with her words. Especially not whatever complicated knot of grief Hella had tangled up inside her for her co-pilot who, by all accounts, she hadn’t gotten along with particularly well prior to her death and had died while still connected to Hella’s mind, which Adaire imagined would fuck anyone up. Hella seemed to be coping well, considering. But she was a private person, and so was Adaire, so that suited her fine.

Hella caught her eyes and nodded encouragingly, and Adaire nodded back, grinning: part comfort and part challenge. “You ready for this?”

“Can’t wait,” Hella said, rolling her shoulders and drawing Adaire’s attention to the panels of her armor—polished until they gleamed but still covered in the scrapes and scratches of years of combat—that did nothing to hide just how buff she was under all that. That was something none of the news footage, none of the recordings of old interviews and press conferences, had prepared her for. The first time she’d seen Hella in the tank top she wore for sparring, on the morning that their drift compatibility was assessed for the first time, she’d barely been able to stop herself from saying, _so did you flex those sleeves off yourself?_

Adaire was more used to the sight now, didn’t lose her entire mind quite the same way every time, but Hella’s unbelievably impressive collection of muscles and scars still did something complicated to Adaire’s heart that she probably ought to see a doctor about.

And then it was time for the drift, time for Adaire to get out of her own head and into Hella’s, and she closed her eyes and felt herself tipping into the strange limbo between the waking world and their linked consciousnesses. It felt familiar, not just the parts she recognized as her memories, but even things she would’ve sworn she’d never seen before just felt _right_ , woven together with her own memories and dreams like they’d always been part of the fabric of her subconscious.

Except that she and Hella weren’t alone. There was someone else there, really there, not just one of the ghostly figures that flickered and blurred as her mind shuffled from memory to memory, a beautiful and intimidating woman who somehow made the standard-issue jumpsuit they all wore under their armor look _fashionable_ and _flattering_. One elegant eyebrow was raised, and she was looking at Adaire in a way that made her automatically straighten up her posture and try to smooth down her hair, and also somehow like she could see all the way through her, holding her transfixed by the force of her gaze.

“Hey, babe,” the woman said to Hella. “So this is my replacement.”

“No one could replace you, darling,” Hella said, reaching for her hand, and Adaire noticed suddenly that both women wore matching wedding rings, simple bands set with pearls, that Hella definitely hadn’t been wearing in the physical world. “Adaire, I’d like you to meet Adelaide, my wife—” that _definitely_ hadn’t been in the news, or Hella’s personnel file, or anything, Adaire would’ve known about something like that “—and Adelaide, this is Adaire.” Hella smiled, softly. “I think you’ll like her.”

“You’re married?”

“Yeah,” Hella said. “I mean, not legally or anything since legally technically she’s dead but. Yeah. We’re married.” She shrugged. “Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, I wasn’t sure if anyone else would be able to see her like this here.”

“Huh,” Adaire said, meeting Adelaide’s stare, almost defiantly, and Adelaide’s lips curved up into a smile that Adaire was going to go ahead and take for approval.

“I can see why you like her,” Adelaide said, brushing her lips against Hella’s skin to murmur the words in her ear, just loudly enough for Adaire to know that she was meant to hear it as well, and Hella blushed.

“You can flirt with my co-pilot later,” Hella said. “We’re supposed to be training right now.”

“Oh, as if you can’t multitask when it comes to that,” Adelaide said, pressing a kiss to Hella’s cheek.

“Yeah, Hella, why can’t we do both?” Adaire said, and she was rewarded by matching hungry smiles from both Hella and Adelaide, which she returned eagerly.

**Author's Note:**

> title from 100 years by florence + the machine but also that one line in pacrim that's like. you can always find me in the drift. except in this case I made that a lil more literal bc. y'know. what if the drift was adularia
> 
> let's see if I can actually keep up w 15 days this year.........
> 
> talk to me on twitter abt pacrim aus @s_artemisios


End file.
